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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoes Voter Suppression Have An Impact? If so, Then Polls Showing Biden Having a Lead May Not Matter
I am not saying that the polls are not accurate. I think the polls are accurate. The issue is that polls do not decide election outcomes. Its votes that matter. Yet, it has become increasingly clear that Republicans do not care about democracy. Rather, despite the lip service they give to freedom, Republicans have increasingly sought to suppress the vote. Even though a lot of their voter suppression efforts are targeted toward minorities, even white people are affected as Republicans impose strict voter ID laws and reduce polling locations in more populated areas:
Republicans understand this, which is why Trump is doing his best to attack the United States Postal Service and vote by mail. Republicans are looking for a pretext to once again suppress the vote.
Thus, while more people in more States may prefer Biden that does not matter if they are prevented from voting. For example, if the federal or state government were to strategically send troops and lockdown Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Philadelphia, but leave less populated and rural areas of the swing states unrestricted, Trump can "win" by taking more populated blue areas out of the equation.
So, even if Biden clearly leads Trump in terms of popular preference and polls, Trump can win more votes by putting certain cities into lockdown on the day of the election like he did Portland.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/7/18071438/midterm-election-results-voting-rights-georgia-florida
In Georgia, Kemp remained in his position as Georgias secretary of state the office that oversees elections in Georgia even while running for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Kemp has carried out mass purges of the voter rolls, ostensibly to remove dead people and people who havent voted in recent elections from the records, but in such a sweeping way that Democrats fear it will keep voters, particularly minority voters, off the rolls.
Kemps office also put 53,000 voter registrations on hold, nearly 70 percent of which are for black voters, by using an error-prone exact match system, which stops voter registrations if there are any discrepancies, down to dropped hyphens, with other government records.
And in the days before Election Day, Kemp accused Democrats, through the secretary of states website and with no evidence, of attempting to hack the states voter registration system. As elections law expert Richard Hasen wrote in Slate, this was perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era.
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)tactics.
Voter suppression only works if turn out is limited. The greater concern will be when trump advocates for his supporters to take up armed presence at polling places and the state and local law enforcement does nothing
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,414 posts)TomCADem
(17,387 posts)It may not be right, but who can stop the President? Protesters? Heck, by providing violent conflicts with protesters, Trump can create the pretext for locking down a city, imposing a curfew, etc.
https://fortune.com/2020/07/22/trump-federal-troops-portland-law-us-cities-chicago-nyc-baltimore-philadelphia-detroit/
Federal agents in military uniforms have recently snatched U.S. citizens off the streets of Portland, Ore., and driven them away in unmarked vans. President Trump, who claims such tactics are necessary to restore law and order, has vowed to carry out similar measures in other U.S. cities.
The incidentsincluding the beating of a Navy veteran who questioned the agents authorityhave triggered alarm from critics across the political spectrum. They have raised questions about the identity of the "Trump troops," as some are calling them, and the legal justification for their presence. Here is a plain English overview of this new style of federal law enforcement.
* * *
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf sent them to protect "monuments, memorials, and statues"an apparent response to protests in Portland that have occasionally turned violent.
Skeptics, including former FBI Director James Comey, say President Trump's real purpose in deploying these federal agents is to gin up television images of chaos and conflictimages that can support his claim that Americans need to choose a "law and order" President in November's election. Trump critics also note that the recent incidents in Portland are akin to what the President did in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., in early June. On that occasion, Trump used federal agentsincluding riot control officers from the Bureau of Prisonsto tear-gas peaceful protesters in order to arrange a photo op.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)Democrats enforce it?!
People who say Trump can't ... EFFECTIVELY ... enact something that does similar to a lock down aren't facing reality.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,414 posts)What's the plan going to be?
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... so she can put in Joe Biden
Joe biden's administration puts Trump in jail. All I can think of right now
TomCADem
(17,387 posts)This the key. This is the only way you can sort of hold Trump semi-accountable is by making sure that the Senate is in play. Without Republicans in the Senate covering for Trump, Trump would not have been able to do what he did. Unfortunately, by voting not to impeach Trump, Senate Republicans have emboldened Trump because he has no accountability.
brooklynite
(94,592 posts)TomCADem
(17,387 posts)I dunno. I guess if you believe that Trump was justified in trying to combat "antifa" in Portland, but I think sending in troops into Portland was just a pretext to generate video in support of his law and order campaign theme.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/25/trump-directs-a-campaign-ad-in-portland-381423
At White House briefings, in far-right outlets and among Republicans, Trumps allies have made a sound stage out of four blocks in Portland, turning it into a campaign ad for the president. On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany showed a video of Portland protesters yelling obscenities at police. On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday announced he would hold a hearing on antifa terrorism and wrote an op-ed promising to take back Portland. On Fox News, pundits have turned attention to other cities, such as Chicago, that they claim are in similar situations. In short, they say, its the America Joe Biden would create.
The theatrical display is giving Trump the ammunition he needs to fight perhaps his most aggressive culture war against urban, liberal voters. The effort is a subset of the broader law and order platform he is trying to create after the coronavirus pandemic decimated the economy previously seen by Republicans as his best selling point and massive anti-racism protests broke out across the country. Its a foray Trump essentially launched the day he marched from the White House to the vandalized St. Johns Church, stopping to hold up a Bible and have his photo taken.
I think hes fishing around for an image, for optics that project the image hes trying to retain, said Seth Mandel, the executive editor of the right-leaning Washington Examiner magazine. Law and order, as he says.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)Armed gangs of white thugs (aka federal troops) patrolling urban (Democratic) polling places, computer hacking by Russia, KKK blowing up polling places, Nazis mugging mail handlers so they can intercept votes for Biden....
However, the overall turn out will be so high that it will not matter. Due to COVID most people will have nothing better to do in November than vote.
The result will be the Biden DOJ issuing a lot of federal charges for violations of the Civil Rights Act and a lot of suppressors will go to jail.
I know Trump hopes to use the military to suppress urban votes, but the Pentagon hates his Bounty to Kill US Troops in Afghanistan Pasty White Ass right now, so they will pull the rug out from under him on election day.
Oh, and the Roberts Court will not give Trump the election.